Internal combustion engine of circular cylinder type



ug Z7, 1957 MATsUsuKE HoNJYo INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE 0F CIRCULAR CYLINDER TYPE Filed OCT.. 12, 1956 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Aug 27, 1957 MATsUsUKE HoNJYo 2,804,059

INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE OF CIRCULAR CYLINDER TYPE Filed Oct. l2, 1956 2 Sheets-Shea?I 2 Uflllid Si INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE F CHRCULAR CYLINDER TYPE Matsusuke Honjyo, Tokyo-to, Japan Application October 12, 1956, Serial No. 615,623 Claims priority, application Japan November 1S, 1955 1 Claim. (Cl. 12S-11) This invention relates to an internal combustion engine of circular cylinder type.

In the conventional internal combustion engine heretofore in use, reciprocating motion of a piston is converted to rotating motion by means of a crank mechanism so as to utilize said motion as a driving power, so that heat eliiciency of said engine is relatively low. On the other hand, generally, efficiency of rotating machine is higher than that of reciprocating machine as will be understood from the fact that efficiency of steam turbine is higher than that of steam engine. However, turbine necessitates large dimension and weight thereof is relatively large in comparison with the output power thereof. Accordingly, turbine engine is unsuitable for use in the automobiles and aeroplanes.

Therefore, an important object of this invention is to provide a novel internal combustion engine of circular cylinder type having no such disadvantages as described above.

Said object and other obiects of this invention have been accomplished by the construction which comprises a circular cylinder, at least one pair of an arcuate driving piston and an arcuate following piston inserted in said cylinder so as to be moved therein, a main shaft arranged perpendicular to the plane of said cylinder, said driving piston being rigidly supported by said main shaft through an arrn which protrudes airtightly from said cylinder so as to drive said main shaft, the protruded portion of said arm being provided with rearwardly prolonged portion, and said following piston being supported by a supporter which is protruded airtightly from said cylinder and is supported loosely on the main shaft so as to rotate around said main shaft, a free gear wheel supported loosely on said shaft, a stationary internal gear arranged concentric to the main shaft, at least one small gear wheel which is meshed between said free gear wheel and the internal gear, a gear mechanism driven by `the main shaft and driving the free gear wheel, said gear members being designed so that said small gear wheel may carry out a revolution around said free gear wheel at a velocity equal to that of the main shaft while carrying out selfrotation, piston rings inserted in the ring-shaped slots which are made around the pistons, and at least one crank which is pivoted at its both ends to said following piston and said small gear wheel so that the following piston may reciprocatingly approach to and detach from the driving piston, said crank being designed so that said reciprocating stroke of said following piston may be carried out in the range of the above-rrentioned prolonged portion of the arm supporting the driving piston.

The novel features of this invention are set forth with particularity in the appended claim. This invention, however, as to both its construction and manner of application together with further objects and advantages thereof may best be understood by reference to the fol- 2,804,059 Patented Aug. 27, 1957 lowing description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a front view of an example of this invention, in which front cover of the cylinder is taken out.

Fig. 2 is a side view of the example in Fig. l, in which the cylinder is sectioned at the upper half portion along the line II-II and at the lower half portion along the line IIa-Ilan and crank device and gear mechanism are viewed along the line IIb-IIb.

Fig. 3 is a perspective view of the example illustrated in Figs. l and 2, in which front cover of the cylinder is partially cut off.

Fig. 4 is a circular diagram for describing stroke relation between the driving pistons and the following pistons in the example illustrated in Figs. l-3.

Referring to Figs. 1-4, two pairs of arcuate driving pistons 2 and arcuate following pistons 3 are arranged in a circular cylinder 1 so as to be moved therein along the circular path in said cylinder. For the simplification of the description, in the following, description will be made in connection with only one pair of a following piston and a driving piston, because construction and operation of said pair are entirely same with those of another pair of the pistons. The driving pistons 2 are supported by an arm 5 which is fixed to the main shaft 6 through a nave 8 and the following piston 3 is supported by one arm 5a yof a Ushaped supporter 5A, said supporter 5A being united with a nave 8a which is loosely supported on the main shaft 6. Said arrns 5 and 5a are closely protruded through a' ring-shaped slot made at the inside periphery of the cylinder 1. The end of another arm 5b of the supporter 5A is pivoted to one end of a crank 12 of which action will be described minutely in the latter.

The main shaft 6 is supported by the bearings 21 and Z2 and provided with a gear 13 fixed therewith. A pinion .i4 having a shaft ida is meshed with said gear 13 and a gear l5 is fixed to said shaft 14a, said shaft 14a being supported by the bearings 2.3 and 24. Gears 10 and 16 are combined as one body and supported yon the main shaft 6 so as to be rotated around said shaft, said gear i6 being rneshed with said gear 15. Between the gear l@ and a stationary internal gear 9 are rneshed two small gear wheels l1. The above-mentioned gear mechanism is designed so that the wheels l1 may be revolved around the gear lil at a speed equal to that Iof the main shaft 6. rhe crank arrn 12a is fixed at its one end to the shaft of the wheel il and islpivoted at another end to the crank 12. The circular cylinder l is provided with ignition plugs 1"!" at the diagonal positions thereof and with two pairs of air admission openings 18 and air exhaust openings 19, said two pairs being positioned at diagonal positions of the cylinder.

Now, in the construction as described above, when the main shaft 6 is rotated counterclockwise, the driving piston 2 rotates towards same direction at a substantially constant speed.

At the same time with said rotation of the driving piston, the following piston 3 also is rotated counterclockwise at a mean speed equal to that of said driving piston, because the small gear wheel 1l connected with the following piston through the arm 5b and crank 12 is rotated counterciockwise around the gear wheel 1t) at a speed equal to that of the main shaft 6.

However, the motion of the following piston is not uniform due to action of the crank l2 pivoted to said piston and to self-rotation of the small gear wheel 1l, said self-rotation being performed four times per revolution of said wheel 11 around the gear wheel l@ in the example as described above, so thaty the following piston 3 advances while repeating its acceleration and retardation for four times per revolution of 360.

Accordingly, the following piston 3 approaches to and then detaches from the driving piston 2 for four times per revolution of 360. This motion will be more clearly understood, from such diagram as: showrriny Fig. 4, in which the driving piston 2 .advancesv along the full line and the following piston 3 advances along the broken line, the positions p and ql corresponding to the positions, in which the distances between the driving piston 2 and following piston 3 of a pair is shortest.

Accordingly, as clearly shown: in Figs. 3 and 4, when the cylinder l is provided with an ignition plug 17 at each of the positions p and the front and rear covers 25 are provided respectively with an. exhaust opening 18 and an admission opening 19 at the both sides 4of each of the positions q, explosion due to ignition, exhaust and admission are successively carried out and the driving piston 2. is successively driven counterclockwise by the explosion, thereby the main shaft 6 isr driven. In this case, the following piston 3 is driven towards the same direction as that of the driving piston 2, as described already, by means of a part of driving torque of the main shaft 6.

As described above, the explosion is carried out during back stroke of the following piston, so that back motion of the following piston due to back pressure caused by the explosion is added to the torque of the small gear wheel 11, so that any loss dueto said back motion would not occur.

Exhaust and admission will be more clearly described as follows, in connection with Figs. l, 3 and 4. The exhaust gas is exhausted through the exhaust opening 18 during the stroke of the pistons, in which the driving piston 2 commences to detach from at least the rear portion of said opening 13 and the following piston 3 approaches to said driving piston 2. Upon detaching of the following piston 3 from said opening 18, said piston retards for a short time and then advances. During next stroke, when the driving piston 2 passes out at least rear portion of the next admission opening 19, admission commences. Upon completion of the admission, the following piston 3 approaches again to the driving piston 2, thereby compression is carried out. After completion of said compression, both pistons take the next ignition position p.

For embodying the engine of this invention, it is important to prevent the cylinder from gas leakage at the protruding positions of the supporting arms 5 and 5a from the cylinder wall.

For said object, according to this invention, as shown in Figs. l and 2, the arm 5 of the driving piston 2 is prolonged rearwards at its position protruding from the cylinder wall, said prolonged portion is provided with projected flanges 2t) at its both sides, said iianges being airtightly tted in the ring-shaped slots which are cut in the cylinder wall, the arm 5a of the following piston 3 is provided with projected flanges at its both sides, said flanges being airtightly tted in said ring-shaped slots, and

the following piston 3 is positioned so that oscillating motion of said piston may be carried out in the range of said prolonged portion, whereby the space between the driving and following pistons of a pair in which explosion and compression are to be carried out is airtightly enclosed.

Furthermore, for the prevention of the cylinder from gas leakage, the driving and following pistons are provided with piston rings- 4 which are engaged in ringshaped slots made around said pistons.

In the operation of the engine of this invention, beside gaseous fuel, any fuel such as vaporous or liquid fuel or their mixture may be used as the ignition fuel.

While I have illustrated particular embodiments of my invention, it will of corrse, be understood that I do not wish to be limited thereto, since many modifications may be made and I, therefore, contemplate by the appended claimt to cover all such modifications within the true spirit and scope of this invention.

What I claim is:

Internal combustion engine of circular cylinder type which comprises a circular cylinder, at least one pair of an arcuate driving piston and an arcuate following pis* ton inserted in said cylinder so as to be moved therein, a main shaft arranged perpendicular to the plane of said cylinder, said driving piston being rigidly supported by said main shaft through an arm which protrudes airtightly from said cylinder so as to drive said r-nain shaft, the protruded portion of said arm being provided with rearwardly prolonged portion, and said following piston beingy supported by a supporter which is protruded airtightly from said cylinder and is supported loosely on the main shaft so as to be rotated around said main shaft, a free gear wheel supported loosely on said shaft, a stationary internal gear arranged concentric to the main shaft, at least one small gear wheelv which is meshed between said free gear wheel and internal gear, a gear mechanism driven by the main shaft and driving said free gear wheel, said gear members being designed so that said small gear wheel may carry out a revolution around said free gear wheel at a speed equal to that of the main shaft while carrying out self-rotation, piston rings inserted in the ring-shaped 'slots which are made around said pistons, at least one crank which is pivoted at its one end to said following piston and at another end to said small gear wheel so that the following piston may reciprocatingly approach to and detach from the driving piston, said crank being designed so that the reciprocating stroke of said following piston may be carried out in the range of the above-mentioned prolonged portion `of the arm supporting the driving piston, and at least `one ignition plug which is attached to said cylinder so that ignition may be carried out at the space between the following and driving pistons so as to push the driving piston forwards, said space corresponding to shortest distance between said pistons.

No references cited. 

